Isaac wrote those points down. He wanted to remember them outside the courthouse too.
He took time before continuing.
“I wish none of it had happened. I am not angry that you wanted me safe.”
Nia leaned against the seat.
For the rest of the drive, they listened to music at a volume low enough that either could speak.
Neither needed to for a while.
The trial began with the ordinary minutes before the stop.
Voss did not open the recording at the most violent moment. The jury saw Isaac and Nia leaving the store with groceries, Nia dropping the keys, and her father bending to retrieve them.
A bank of parked cars filled the background. A cart rolled slightly and stopped against a curb. Nothing announced that the afternoon was about to become evidence.
The store manager identified the recording and explained the view. Ward described the preservation process and the known limits of the system.
Lane questioned the absence of useful audio near the car. The witness acknowledged it.
He asked about the passing van.
The witness identified the blocked interval.
Voss then introduced the phone recordings that covered later events from different positions. She did not claim they filled every second equally well.
The jury saw Mercer hold Isaac against the hood.
They heard Nia ask him to stop.
They saw him turn and take her arm.
Isaac kept his eyes on the floor when that part played. He had reviewed it before, with support, but repetition did not make it ordinary.
Nia was waiting elsewhere according to the witness arrangements. She did not have to sit in the gallery while strangers studied her fear.
Leah testified about when she began recording, where she stood, and what she did not see. Lane asked whether she had already decided Mercer was wrong before knowing why he approached Isaac.
“I decided the girl was frightened and someone needed to keep a record,” she said.
“Those are judgments.”
“Yes.”
“You are not a police trainer.”
“No.”
“Then you cannot tell the jury what the officer was legally permitted to do.”
“I can tell them what I saw.”
Voss did not ask her to provide more.
Martin described helping Isaac sit and making the ambulance call. Omar identified the moment he saw Mercer fall and acknowledged that a parked vehicle blocked part of his view of the girl's feet.
The prosecution allowed that uncertainty to remain.
Medical witnesses described the injuries, treatment, and limitations. They did not claim the injuries alone established criminal intent.
The complete dispatch call followed.
The caller's uncertainty was audible.
Keys, maybe a wallet.
Not sure.
The radio account sounded different: a definite theft investigation and resisting subjects.
The jury heard the distance between those descriptions.
At the afternoon break, Isaac found Nia in the waiting area with Serena and Renee. She had been drawing small boxes along the edge of a worksheet.
“How is it going?” she asked.
“They are hearing the records.”
“Does it look like it happened?”
Isaac understood the question. She wanted to know whether the room could recognize the afternoon she remembered.
Before introducing the recordings, Voss asked the jury to distinguish what each witness could establish. Danner knew the store system. Leah knew when she pressed record. Ward could explain the files and timing. Medical witnesses could address injuries. None needed to pretend expertise in all the others' work.
The approach made the case slower and sturdier. Lane could challenge each part without forcing every answer through one supposedly perfect witness.
Isaac watched the process and thought about how quickly Mercer had compressed the parking lot into a single word: resisting. The trial was opening that word into movements, questions, distances, and choices.
Not every detail favored a simple narrative. Nia had pushed. Mercer had fallen. Isaac had moved when held. Those facts remained visible beside the reasons and sequence the shortened clip omitted.
During lunch, Camille asked Isaac whether he wanted assistance managing the emotional effect of the recordings. He said he had thought watching them enough times would make him numb.
She told him familiarity was not the same as ease.
He arranged to speak with his counselor that evening rather than treating the reaction as a failure. The practical step helped him return for the afternoon without pretending his body had no memory of the car.
“They are seeing more of it,” he said.